Tom Smith - voter apathy likely to hold him back

We've neglected our Tips for the Future for quite a while now. It occurred to us that maybe Tom Smith of Lancashire warranted inclusion after he took 4-55 yesterday.

By any standards Tom Smith has had a blazing start to the season, but there are a few factors counting against him. Our Tips for the Future are meant to be international players who we hope will make a big impact at Test level and in that regard we have a few reservations about Tom Smith.

If other observers are to be believed, he's not actually fast, but fast-medium. In international cricket we don't have a great deal of time for fast-medium bowlers. It's the difference between Old Jason Gillespie and Current Jason Gillespie for example. Also, there's the first season syndrome, where players achieve a great deal because no-one knows what they're doing. The following season when opposing players are familiar with them, they struggle.

Conversely, he's clearly doing something right to take all these wickets; we thought that he was quite quick; and rumour has it he can bat a bit. So should we make the leap and induct him in our Tips for the Future or not? There's nothing at stake because we don't have any credibility, but we would have to write another post and then copy the link into the Tips for the Future post. If there's any opinion either way from our readers, we'll go with that.